Massa suspects Alonso knew about crashgate..

The investigator who questioned Alonso did not feel he knew about the crash (according to Max)

Massa should blame Ferrari for messing up his pitstop in that race. Massa should blame himself for his appalling displays at Sepang, Silverstone and Hockeheim. He shouldn't be blaming other people for not winning the WDC.

Time to move on. Would have brought this up had he still been at Ferrari? I think we all know the answer.

OT, but Massa is getting a kicking he doesn't deserve in this thread. What did he do wrong at Hockenheim? He was struggling with an increasingly long brake pedal IIRC.

Anyway, attacks on Massa are not relevant to this discussion, which ought to be more centred around Crashgate and Alonso's role therein. Whatever his motivation, if Massa can find out more about what happened in Singapore he'll have done us all a favour.

In this case I think it is more like their principle, which is why they don't change this regulation - "if the season is over, it's over."

In reality, FIA should have acted straightaway after Singapore 2008 and at least investigated. But they chose not to, just like they didn't deepen into Renault's late 2007 spygate scandal, believing that "there are things that are better left as they are". But as life shows - it is better to deal with problems instantly instead of letting them stay there before eventually coming back.

The idea that the FIA had any principles under Max's reign doesn't seem very likely.

Not sure what Massa hopes to achieve by raising this now. It was five years ago, even if he had proof of Alonso's knowledge of Crashgate, nothing will change in terms of the race result or the championship as the 2008 season has long finished. If he is trying to make Alonso look like the bad guy, then most of us already have our thoughts on Alonso's involvement (or lack of) in Crashgate and without further evidence, then those feelings are not going to change.

I was appalled with the whole Crashgate mess at the time, but there comes a point when you need to move on. I can see why Massa may hold a grudge if he thinks it took away a world championship, but the 2008 season was 18 races long, so many things could have affected that championship one way or another. I think Massa's energy would be better placed on focusing on his new challenge with Williams rather than bring this all up again.

OT, but Massa is getting a kicking he doesn't deserve in this thread. What did he do wrong at Hockenheim? He was struggling with an increasingly long brake pedal IIRC.

Anyway, attacks on Massa are not relevant to this discussion, which ought to be more centred around Crashgate and Alonso's role therein. Whatever his motivation, if Massa can find out more about what happened in Singapore he'll have done us all a favour.

But he hasn't found anything out. He is simply opening up old wounds of his own, for what reason?

Alonso and his car were 100% legal, they couldn't simply remove his win. They'd have to delete the entire race result since everyone's result was effected by Piquet's cheating!

The powers exist under the regulations to kick the team out of the event. Both cars. It wouldn‘t matter if Alonso had done nothing wrong, although he did gain an illegal advantage by selecting a fuel strategy which they wouldn‘t have picked but for the conspiracy involving Piquet. That clearly constitutes an act prejudicial to the interests of the competition and motorsport, therefore grounds for exclusion from the race (and that‘s only for starters).

You don‘t re-run the race because somebody has cheated, you kick the cheats out of the event.

Alonso and his car were 100% legal, they couldn't simply remove his win. They'd have to delete the entire race result since everyone's result was effected by Piquet's cheating!

I agree, which would be most advantageous to Massa since LuLu scored 6 pts, and he none, thereby handing him the WDC. I think this is why Max knew for months, but did not investigate. It should and would have changed the championship.

OT, but Massa is getting a kicking he doesn't deserve in this thread. What did he do wrong at Hockenheim? He was struggling with an increasingly long brake pedal IIRC.

Anyway, attacks on Massa are not relevant to this discussion, which ought to be more centred around Crashgate and Alonso's role therein. Whatever his motivation, if Massa can find out more about what happened in Singapore he'll have done us all a favour.

Hockenheim was the pivotal race for 2008.

Going in Massa, Raikkonen and Hamilton were all tied at 48 points. Massa gave up his share of the lead of the championship in that race without a fight seemingly content to just finish ahead of his teammate. After the race Massa commented that basically he didn't feel he had enough car to fight with so he didn't even try. Letting him go allowed Lewis to control his own destiny and fight for the win. It put Lewis ahead of Massa in the points, a lead that Massa was never able to reclaim for the rest of the season.

After that display imo Massa didn't really deserve the championship in 2008.

All you listed above are valid reasons for losing a title. Beeing cheated out of it is not.

Massa was not cheated out of the championship because of the Singapore result Alonso got. Had Piquet not crashed, Massa (arguably) would still finished outside the points because of his pitstop fuel rig accident. Ok, he would have finished 12th instead of 13th if he beated Alonso, who started 15th.

It is stupid for Massa to feel he was cheated out of the 2008 WDC because of Renault's cahoots at Singapore.

I agree, which would be most advantageous to Massa since LuLu scored 6 pts, and he none, thereby handing him the WDC. I think this is why Max knew for months, but did not investigate. It should and would have changed the championship.

If Max had investigated at the time Renault would have been kicked out of the race, Hamilton would have moved up to second, handing him an extra 2 points, and Massa would have moved up to 12th, giving him an extra 0 points.

They wouldn't really retrospectively cancel the whole race. They would just strip Renault of the race win and possibly WCC points.

I mean if someone wipes out half of the grid in a start accident (deliberate or not), the whole race would not get cancelled. Tough luck for those, who got hit. Only the person/team/whatever, who is deemed guilty, can be punished.

Has F1 turn so boring that we have to dig up stuff from five years ago.Lets talk about the causes for Massa's lost championship:- One point deficit- Rain in Brazil- Glock losing control of his car- Engine reliability- Singapore fuel rig accident- Crash in Japan with Hamilton- etc, etcYeah lets concentrate on Alonso knowing or not knowing Briatore/Simmons/Piquet plot to prevent Alonso's exit clause of Renault contract from kicking in due to Renaults failure to deliver performance.

If it hadn‘t rained in Brazil Hamilton wouldn‘t have pitted for wets and would never have fallen behind Glock. We‘d have had a more boring finish but the outcome would have been pretty much the same. And in my opinion Glock‘s car control left very little to be desired bearing in mind the conditions and the tyres he was on. His times were impressive compared to the other cars on dry weather tyres. He finished one place higher than where he had been running before the rain came.

You'd think Piquet Jr had driven into him to listen to Massa's complaints. His team flunked up a pitstop under pressure, that is what cost him, among a number of other missed opportunities throughout that season. No doubt Felipe doesn't remember all of those, or the assistance from the FIA and also his teammate playing the dutiful No.2 which helped put him in with a fighting chance. The SC in Singapore was the same for everybody (apart from the driver with the perfect strategy for it), and not an unusual occurrence in a GP either. The only difference is that it was caused by a driver taking the F1 equivalent of a footballers dive.

Massa's idea that the race can be held up in isolation is flawed. Why should the effects of the race begin and end with Massa's misfortune? Surely the result of Singapore had a knock on influence on how teams then approached the following races based on the outcome and resultant championship positions. If you want to void the result of Singapore to remove the influence of the SC then all following races after Singapore would have to be treated the same.

I doubt the wisdom of bringing this whole issue back up just as he joins forces with Pat Symonds at Williams. I would expect Symonds to be very influential there, and Massa needs to have a good relationship with him IMO.

it has always amazed me why should everyone protect Alonso and lie about this matter, and as you pointed out especially Piquet, why would he still keep on lying about Alonso's involvment.. i think Massa is just bitter and even if i wished for Massa to win it that year, i know that Hamilton deserved it more

It would be good if you could understand that Piquet can't, with any degree of certainty, be sure about what Alonso knew or didn't know about the plan.

If it hadn‘t rained in Brazil Hamilton wouldn‘t have pitted for wets and would never have fallen behind Glock. We‘d have had a more boring finish but the outcome would have been pretty much the same. And in my opinion Glock‘s car control left very little to be desired bearing in mind the conditions and the tyres he was on. His times were impressive compared to the other cars on dry weather tyres. He finished one place higher than where he had been running before the rain came.

If Max had investigated at the time Renault would have been kicked out of the race, Hamilton would have moved up to second, handing him an extra 2 points, and Massa would have moved up to 12th, giving him an extra 0 points.

Piq did not crash out a single person, rather f'ed a whole race, and early on. Whole race scrapped in my book, there is no way to know what would have happened w/o SC.

At first, mentioning Felipe's name amongst F1 World Champions seems a bit like mentioning George Costanza's name amongst the New York Yankees, until you realise George didn't get hit in the face with a spring and that if Felipe had won that championship, the perception of how his accident affected him would likely be very different.

2008 was a messed up season overall, and Crashgate was the crown jewel. Not a doubt in my mind Alonso knew about it, but whether or not any of the parties involved told him explicitly is a different story.

It's only natural that after all these years working at Ferrari that Massa would be a little bitter.. or more open (a better way to put it) about airing dirty things. It just goes to show the difference between the PR and what they really think. Often worlds apart.. and we never know what they really think, because some drivers wouldn't ever want to say it.

For example, it's easy to whinge about things on forums, but now everyone can attack Massa as being bitter, or wrong, or whatever else. No one on these forums has to fight against that, when they state their opinions (or conspiracy theories). It's a negative type of attention and some drivers, probably wouldn't want to face it and would prefer to say nothing.

This is only one example, but it wouldn't surprise me if there are other things as well.

Massa was not cheated out of the championship because of the Singapore result Alonso got. Had Piquet not crashed, Massa (arguably) would still finished outside the points because of his pitstop fuel rig accident. Ok, he would have finished 12th instead of 13th if he beated Alonso, who started 15th.

It is stupid for Massa to feel he was cheated out of the 2008 WDC because of Renault's cahoots at Singapore.

Massa just didn't score enough points to win it.

Massa's opinion is based on the idea that if it weren't for Piquet deliberately crashing to bring out a SC that would benefit his teammate Alonso, Ferrari would not have had to make a unscheduled pitstop at that time and might not have made that error in the originally-planned stop.

I think Massa has reason to be aggrieved... that crash put every team in panic mode as happened in those SC periods at the time where there was a mad rush to get into the pits and out again lest you lose places in the queue or track position to those who stay out. Ferrari like all teams were making an unscheduled pitstop without the usual preparation that would go into a planned one... hence the probability of an error going massively up... fate saw it that Ferrari and Massa were the ones to suffer.

IMO, Alonso was Witness X but I sense a lot of bitterness from Massa here, although I would not blame him if I was in his shoes. I don't think the fact that Alonso thinks its a legit win helps either. In hindsight he could say that race cost him his title, but i'm sure spinning 5 times in silverstone didn't help his title bid either.

Going in Massa, Raikkonen and Hamilton were all tied at 48 points. Massa gave up his share of the lead of the championship in that race without a fight seemingly content to just finish ahead of his teammate. After the race Massa commented that basically he didn't feel he had enough car to fight with so he didn't even try. Letting him go allowed Lewis to control his own destiny and fight for the win. It put Lewis ahead of Massa in the points, a lead that Massa was never able to reclaim for the rest of the season.

After that display imo Massa didn't really deserve the championship in 2008.

This is silly, Massa most certainly would have regained the championship lead back in Hungary, but we all know what happened with 3 laps to go. This was the same race where he made Lewis look like a fool at the start.

Massa's opinion is based on the idea that if it weren't for Piquet deliberately crashing to bring out a SC that would benefit his teammate Alonso, Ferrari would not have had to make a unscheduled pitstop at that time and might not have made that error in the originally-planned stop.

I think Massa has reason to be aggrieved... that crash put every team in panic mode as happened in those SC periods at the time where there was a mad rush to get into the pits and out again lest you lose places in the queue or track position to those who stay out. Ferrari like all teams were making an unscheduled pitstop without the usual preparation that would go into a planned one... hence the probability of an error going massively up... fate saw it that Ferrari and Massa were the ones to suffer.

Felipe probably would've won that Grand Prix but for that incident.

nah, in that year they had the pits closed on the first laps of an SC period. even if the pit crew was panicking like a teen girl standing next to Justin Bieber, they still had 2 laps to calm down.

also, the problem was with the new pit light system of ferrari if I remember correctly, and they had exactly the same problem in the previous race without any SC, but with Raikkönen in this case. (but unlike Massa, he has superhuman reflexes and could stop the car while still in the pit box )

Ron Dennis was completely right when he said, somewhere in the early '90s - I forget the exact circumstances, that championships are won and lost over an entire season. All races count the same, after all. Or at least that was true before the teams refused to stand up to Bernie's Abu Dhabi scheme.

That list could also include Malaysia, and Massa's rather unflattering spin into the gravel from a relatively comfortable 2nd place.

Ron Dennis was completely right when he said, somewhere in the early '90s - I forget the exact circumstances, that championships are won and lost over an entire season. All races count the same, after all. Or at least that was true before the teams refused to stand up to Bernie's Abu Dhabi scheme.

That list could also include Malaysia, and Massa's rather unflattering spin into the gravel from a relatively comfortable 2nd place.

Where does RD say "won over a season of races, some rigged, some not, just have to make up for those fake ones in other races where you better control your destiny"?

nah, in that year they had the pits closed on the first laps of an SC period. even if the pit crew was panicking like a teen girl standing next to Justin Bieber, they still had 2 laps to calm down.

also, the problem was with the new pit light system of ferrari if I remember correctly, and they had exactly the same problem in the previous race without any SC, but with Raikkönen in this case. (but unlike Massa, he has superhuman reflexes and could stop the car while still in the pit box )

That's very true... I forgot they had introduced that 'waiting period' before opening the pitlane... thanks for reminding me.

And yes the traffic light system was also in it's early stages so not totally reliable at that point...

Another thing that people forget is that in 2008 Alonso was not in best terms with Mclaren and Hamilton. Prior to the last race he said he would do anything and everything to help Massa and Ferrari win it, to the point that some people were worried he was going to crash Hamilton out of the race.

Another thing that people forget is that in 2008 Alonso was not in best terms with Mclaren and Hamilton. Prior to the last race he said he would do anything and everything to help Massa and Ferrari win it, to the point that some people were worried he was going to crash Hamilton out of the race.

Another thing that people forget is that in 2008 Alonso was not in best terms with Mclaren and Hamilton. Prior to the last race he said he would do anything and everything to help Massa and Ferrari win it, to the point that some people were worried he was going to crash Hamilton out of the race.

You have raised a good point, I like Alonso but the guy was mentally unstable around 2006-2010. Not to say he was always at fault when he was pushed over the edge, but events like threatening to lie on the track at Monaco 2006 if Schumi was not punished were mildly disturbing to say the least/

I do not think anyone is saying that Alonso was out to directly get Massa, I think everyone accepts that Alonso was out for himself if he was indeed guilty. Massa is just thought to be by some as the biggest victim, which as others have stated is highly debatable.

This is silly, Massa most certainly would have regained the championship lead back in Hungary, but we all know what happened with 3 laps to go. This was the same race where he made Lewis look like a fool at the start.

My point exactly. Massa would have gotten an earfull from the team on letting Hamilton pass so easily in Germany which resulted in probably the best performance of his career at the start in Hungary. This is exactly the fired up agressive attitude he lacked in Germany, he needed to have fought Hamilton, taken him on - not show that he was a pushover. Unfortunately he wasn't able to establish himself ahead of Hamilton.

My point exactly. Massa would have gotten an earfull from the team on letting Hamilton pass so easily in Germany which resulted in probably the best performance of his career at the start in Hungary. This is exactly the fired up agressive attitude he lacked in Germany, he needed to have fought Hamilton, taken him on - not show that he was a pushover. Unfortunately he wasn't able to establish himself ahead of Hamilton.

(off topic) The funny thing about that was in the ITV race buildup they showed an interview with Hamilton in which he said (in reference to his pass on Massa at Germany) "Nobody passes me round the outside like that". Then came turn 1 of the Hungarian GP...

Let's see... Alonso qualified 15th after a car problem, that means slower cars in front of him. The normal strategy under 2008 rules was to start heavy, wait for people to pit and then make passes by doing fast laps with a light car. This would have been especially sensible on a tough-to-pass street track like Singapore.

But no, Renault decide to start Alonso with a low fuel load. After his pitstop he would have been heavy and near the back of the field. Does someone really think Alonso would agree with this strategy... unless the team have an ace up their sleeve and they inform him of it? Don't be silly, of course he knew of the plan.

I'm glad FIA didn't start messing with the results in 2009 though, or at least not with the championship.

Ron Dennis was completely right when he said, somewhere in the early '90s - I forget the exact circumstances, that championships are won and lost over an entire season. All races count the same, after all. Or at least that was true before the teams refused to stand up to Bernie's Abu Dhabi scheme.

That list could also include Malaysia, and Massa's rather unflattering spin into the gravel from a relatively comfortable 2nd place.

But it is apples and oranges between incidents and purposeful illegal activity against other teams.

Another thing that people forget is that in 2008 Alonso was not in best terms with Mclaren and Hamilton. Prior to the last race he said he would do anything and everything to help Massa and Ferrari win it, to the point that some people were worried he was going to crash Hamilton out of the race.

The powers exist under the regulations to kick the team out of the event. Both cars. It wouldn‘t matter if Alonso had done nothing wrong, although he did gain an illegal advantage by selecting a fuel strategy which they wouldn‘t have picked but for the conspiracy involving Piquet. That clearly constitutes an act prejudicial to the interests of the competition and motorsport, therefore grounds for exclusion from the race (and that‘s only for starters).

You don‘t re-run the race because somebody has cheated, you kick the cheats out of the event.

Indeed there is well known precedent:

I hesitate to bring up Silverstone 1994 because it's such a contentious topic but both Benettons were disqualified from the event for the team ignoring the instructions from the officials. Everybody remembers Schumacher's disqualification, but not everbody remembers that poor Verstappen had his 9th place removed too. OK he didn't lose much, but it shows that the team's actions can affect both their drivers.

Funnily enough, it was the same Enstone team under Flavio that time too.

Plus was it illegal anyway? Conduct detrimental is probably the closest.

The funniest part of it is that had it happened last season, we would have had scores of people asking where is the rule that forbids purposedly crashing a car against the barrier. That's the legacy of years of obfuscated interpretation of rules adopted by FIA after 2009.

Another thing that people forget is that in 2008 Alonso was not in best terms with Mclaren and Hamilton. Prior to the last race he said he would do anything and everything to help Massa and Ferrari win it, to the point that some people were worried he was going to crash Hamilton out of the race.

To vent frustration of having worked with Alonso all of these years? (Now that he is free to speak about it)

What, vent frustration at not being anywhere near as quick as Alonso?

People can have a view about Massa's treatment over the 4 years they were teammates but the fact is that he was compehensively beaten in all 4 seasons and that isn't solely down to the team favouring their best WDC hope.

All Massa is doing here is making a fool of himself.

Finally, if working with Alonso was so bad, he could have left the team sooner. I'm sure Ferrari wouldn't have been any the worse for it in hindsight.

I'd be surprised if Alonso wasn't in on this. He showed when he tried to blackmail Ron Dennis to get preferential treatment over Hamilton at McLaren that his moral compass is out of synch. Massa is in his right to bring up the subject now, that he's not Alonsos team mate anymore, if he is sure injustice was done on his expence.

Pat Symonds on the Motorsport podcast wouldn't comment on this matter other than that there is a lot more to this than what is public knowledge. With Renault on the brink of quitting F1 it was a case of desperate measures in desperate circumstances. I'm not justifying these actions but can understand how it happened. I'm sure it wasn't the first time in F1 historiy something like this has happenwd.